" They had returned to die with the company, but the killing had already begun." Â So begins the story of Sam Taft and Perkin Berger--two cousins from South Texas.Sam, a rancher, wants nothing more than to survive and get home to his wife. Â Perkin, a student of history, finds the war a lark, a grand adventure--until the harrowing realities of WWII begin to set in....The Texas Gun Club is the 2010 Gold Medal Winner of the Military Writers Society of America.Fall, 1943: Â The Allied advance up the Italian peninsula has ground to a halt and the prospect of taking Rome before Christmas seems more distant than ever.In their first action since Salerno, First Lieutenant Sam Taft and the boys of Able Company are sent to wrest a lonely stretch of road away from its German defenders--the Italians call it Highway 6, but the boys of the Texas Gun Club know it as Victory Road....Victory Road is the 2011 Gold Medal Winner of the Military Writers Society of America.
January 1944: The great Allied advance up the Italian peninsula has come to a halt before the formidable German Gustav Line at Monte Cassino. For the American soldiers in the valley, there is nothing to do but wait as General Mark Clark prepares his plan to shatter the German defenses and continue Fifth Armyâs march to Rome.Captain Perkin Berger and First Lieutenant Sam Taft are spared the monotony of waiting. Theyâre given a week of well-deserved leave in an Adriatic resort town, where they have no responsibility other than relaxation. Proving the old maxim that âno plan survives first contact with the enemy,â Sam and Perk find themselves involved in the Canadian battle at Ortona, and once again they are thrust into the middle of a secret war between the Third Reich and the Vatican.When the cousins return from their R&R, it isnât long until the order is given. Against all sound military judgment, the exhausted and under-strength Gun Club is to cross the Rapido River and breach the Gustav Line . . . alone.